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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Could we reclaim "cis"?

135 replies

rocketpocket · 01/08/2018 15:52

I am mainly just thinking out loud here and happy to be told to stop being ridiculous.

I know a lot of the women on here are deeply unhappy with the cis label but I was wondering if it's something we could actually work with.

Cis basically just means a person that identifies as the sex/gender that they were assigned at birth, right?

Wouldn't it be better if we reclaimed the label and had ciswomen only shortlists or ciswomen only refuges or ciswomen only sporting categories?

Perhaps transwomen can be women but they can never be ciswomen.

I think I understand the anger at the definition of "woman" being changed and all the rest. I suppose this is an "if you can't beat them, join them" solution. Is it terrible?

OP posts:
howlsmovingcastle84 · 01/08/2018 19:29

I couldn't be cis as I don't fit the criteria.
If I had to have a prefix it would have to be scipro woman-short for scientifically provable woman.

thebewilderness · 01/08/2018 19:39

Cis basically just means a person that identifies as the sex/gender that they were assigned at birth, right?

Wrong.
It is a chemistry term that was adopted by TRAs to 'other' women the way men always have.
Men have always described women in relationship to them. Wife man was the origin of women. Now that some men have decided to use the terms that formerly described the female half of the population to describe themselves, female, woman, girl, they have decided to call us non-men and non-trans or cis, or whatever other subhuman category that catches their fancy.
"I must ask you to resist, do not submit."
Women tried in the seventies to reclaim "bitch" and I think you can see how well that worked out. You cannot reclaim slurs that were never yours. All these slurs they scream at women when we tell them no belong to men.

JackyHolyoake · 01/08/2018 19:41

puppiesnotpatriarchy

"Transgender, cisalpine, and trans- in trans-isomers are all adjectives, not verbs, that's why transport doesn't have a corresponding "cisport"

Is "transgender" not a noun? Is "woman" or "man" not a noun? Is "transport" not a noun? Is "isomer" not a noun? [Granted that "alpine" in that context is an adjective.]

AuntMsVanillaRose · 01/08/2018 19:41

Funny how Mumsnet says people aren't allowed to use that c-word, but is fiiiiiiine with the use of the word in this thread. #Hypocrisy!

thebewilderness · 01/08/2018 19:44

"Replacing sex with gender identity is like replacing modern medicine with prayer."
You can only do it for yourself, never anyone else.

Knicknackpaddyflak · 01/08/2018 19:44

No.

Not playing adolescent identity/category games, engaging with it validates it. You might as well argue which colour power ranger you are.

I'm likely to get out a soap box and scorch someone's ears off if they are so rude as to imply to me that I embrace and obey sexist stereotypes and disempowerment, and that if I don't get in the little box they've ascribed me then yay I have to be stuffed in another box like queer or non binary or Hufflepuff . I'm an adult human female, it's a woman, grow the fuck up.

And the whole 'boring old cis' thing really shows it for what it is. This hours spent finding the perfect list of labels that describes the real, authentic, absolutely categorised you basically means pushing everyone else into your own boxes so that you can define yourself as something more special and exciting than them. If you're still doing that past about nineteen you need a good counsellor and less time on your hands.

It reminds me of that shrink boyfriend of Phoebe's in Friends... 'define me! love me!'

SanFranBear · 01/08/2018 19:56

Absolutely not!

Bowlofbabelfish · 01/08/2018 20:00

Nope. Not having it.

I’m not an isomer.
I’m not a genetic control element

Not claiming it, reclaiming it or anything else. It’s not empowering (boak) to do so.

I’m just a woman. The c word can go jump.

silentcrow · 01/08/2018 20:08

No.

Because it's so often linked to the word "privilege". This is a device to make an actual oppressed class (ie sex) feel guilty, playing on the socialisation of women to "make nice" and give up our spaces.

I defy you to define "cis privilage" without it boiling down to "I'm jealous of the pretty things and I wanna be in the big girls' clique". Because I've looked through those "cis priviliage" lists and pretty much everything applies to ACTUAL WOMEN. "I can't buy pretty shoes in my size", FFS.

I do think it's a peculiarly English-language thing, too (which given it almost certainly stems from American MRAs, is no surprise). Can you have "cis-frau"? Does it work in Hebrew? Bengali? Swahili? Ridiculous.

terryleather · 01/08/2018 20:23

Funny how Mumsnet says people aren't allowed to use that c-word, but is fiiiiiiine with the use of the word in this thread.

Funny how in order to discuss a word one might have to actually use that word.

1/10 Gotcha! points. Try harder.

Materialist · 01/08/2018 20:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BarrackerBarmer · 01/08/2018 20:35

Always good to kick ideas around.

But nope.

I won't be giving a speck of validity to the whole concept of 'identifying as' anything at all.

It's this bizarre idea that incanting an 'identity' is something due serious respect and dignity that is the problem.

I'm not interested in 'identities'. Mine, yours, anyone's.
And I think the sooner we return to challenging people's declarations when we deem them suspect, the better.
I can't think of anything much more insidious than 'you may never challenge my claims' being endorsed by society.

thebewilderness · 01/08/2018 20:39

I think Feminists here on FWR and in the world at large are getting a bit tired of all these 'why won't women just submit' questions, day after day.

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 01/08/2018 20:45

I wouldn't have 'cis' with a pound of tea

  1. accepting it requires us to abandon the concept of gender as an oppressive tool of the patriarchy to keep us subordinated, I.e., to ditch all possibility of feminist analysis

  2. if we did somehow manage to acceptably reclaim it, all that would happen is it would get appropriated just as 'woman' has been.

Bingpot · 01/08/2018 20:51

The only thing I was at assigned at birth was my name.

'Cis' is an unacceptable term as it devalues the category of woman. Woman means adult human female and only that. Adult human females are not a subset of 'woman' which includes men. The word for that is 'human'.

And more to the point, I will not add to anything that validates this particular sign from the recent SF Dyke March, which I found appalling. I will not be marginalised out of my own identity.

Bingpot · 01/08/2018 20:54

Photo

Could we reclaim "cis"?
Materialist · 01/08/2018 21:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 01/08/2018 21:09

The only thing I was at assigned at birth was my name

If only. I was assigned a subordinate position as default provider of domestic, sexual and emotional labour to my male superiors and painfully socialised into caring, self-sacrifice and keeping quiet about my own needs and opinions in the service of my assigned sex role. Now that I see this clearly and understand the many harms it has done me throughout my life, I utterly reject my assigned gender. I'm a woman. I'm not cis.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 01/08/2018 21:40

Funny how Mumsnet says people aren't allowed to use that c-word, but is fiiiiiiine with the use of the word in this thread

Funny how mumsnet have said its ok to DISCUSS the word or REFER TO YOURSELF as the word but not call other people ...the word

HotRocker · 01/08/2018 21:44

No, I have to reclaim the word woman on a daily basis, being called girl or lady etc. I’m quite happy with the word woman, and I shall continue to reclaim it.

Original poster
rocketpocket · 01/08/2018 21:49

Well this got a lot more attention than I expected!

I've not read the whole thing yet but am working my way through. General consensus is that it would be a terrible idea and I respect that. I get it. Like I said it was more of a thinking out loud moment.

Sometimes it just feels like we're fighting a losing battle. Sometimes it feels like it's a battle that has already been lost. At the moment men who say they are women are in women's prisons, women's sports, women's shortlist's and safe spaces and toilets and anywhere else they want to be. It's disheartening.

For what it's worth I also wouldn't say I "feel" like a woman. I simply am a woman. So when you've put it like you have about stereotypes and everything else that makes perfect sense to me. I just don't know where we go from here...

OP posts:
Agrona · 01/08/2018 21:52

Ci*? Why ‘reclaim’ something that is forcibly and incorrectly assigned by people who want to erase women?

No.

Original poster
rocketpocket · 01/08/2018 21:56

Also I think I made a bit of a mistake with "cis" and how it's about "identifying". I was basically using it in the same way as just "born female". I didn't think too much about the "identifying" part of it.

Would "born female" shortlist's work? And sports teams etc etc. I suppose they'd just get flak for not being "inclusive"...

OP posts:
LangCleg · 01/08/2018 22:12

Would "born female" shortlist's work?

No.